Introduction

My name is Paul Wesley. I am born and brought up in Mumbai, India but currently live and work in Dubai. My hobbies and interests revolve around design and music in general. I enjoy playing violin, guitar, piano and love getting creative with computer graphics. I feel quite guilty when I neglect either one... ha, but that's how it is mostly!

Concept

The concept behind this piece was to design a futuristic automobile that was equipped with ammunition and had defense capabilities. A sort of a war machine that looked ready for a fight and could be a possible future armored tank. Keeping this in mind, I went with a look and feel that was decidedly futuristic but at the same time incorporated elements from current or yesteryear vehicles. Hence I decided to use seemingly "past" concepts like nuts and bolts, rivets, metal, grille, chrome and wires to make the design a little more believable (Fig.01).

Fig. 01

Modeling

I had a distinct idea of what I wanted the final car to look like before I began modeling on the computer. I knew that I wanted the car to be defined by smooth, streamlined curves as opposed to sharp angular shapes. I also felt it would be slightly shocking to leave the underside exposed, having the engine and wires running beneath it on display, thereby giving it that raw, unfinished look (Fig.02).

Fig. 02

Agreed, this car was set in the future, but it still needed visual cues from present or past car standards to make the visual a little more believable. In the end, the visual had to be believable. That was at the back of my mind all along during the creation of the piece (Fig.03).

Fig. 03

I did not have any references to model from, as this was completely conceptual. Therefore I had to create basic references to start modeling from. I began by sketching out splines in the orthographic viewports in 3ds Max. This gave me a basic reference image to begin working from. I kept modifying and tweaking till I got results that I wanted (Fig.04 - Fig.05).